Gelato, You Will Be The Death of Me

It has been two weeks already! Living in Siena is amazing and I really don't think this "honeymoon" period (all the study abroad advisors call it that) will ever end for me. I am constantly learning new things about, not only the Italian language, but the culture and people as well. I even feel relieved when I'm heading back to Siena after a long day of excursions to other Italian towns. I just like it here. Plain and simple.

I have done so much in the past two weeks that I'll try to sum it all up in a few categories:

School--- The first three weeks of class have been Intensive Italian class only. We got divided into levels and I'm in the advanced group (stir the soup!). We have class everyday from 10am to 3pm with an hour break for lunch where we generally go to Piazza del Campo (the main plaza in Siena) to eat and people watch. We've had a test at the end of each week and after this week we have a final exam! After the final exam we go on a 4-day group excursion (more on that later) and then when we return, Italian language class continues but we start new classes as well! I will be taking Italian Cinema, Italian Emigration to the Americas, and History of Italian Cooking (tasting sessions, bring it on). The intensive italian hasn't been bad, but we're reviewing lots of verb tenses and conjugations that are verbally not necessary because Italians don't actually use the complicated ones ever. All the Italians I have spoken with say that I will be able to speak better than them haha.

Free Time/Excursions--- When we're not in class, we're usually either drinking cappuccinos or eating gelato in the Piazza. And by "the Piazza" I mean Piazza del Campo. As previously mentioned, this is Siena's main plaza and touristy hotspot. Shaped like a shell and divided into 9 sections (representing Siena's ancient "government of the nine"), Il Campo is hoppin' at any time of the day. My favorite Campo activity is taking pictures of adorable kiddies chasing pigeons, or just feeding the pigeons myself (my friends here hate me for that bahaha). Many afternoons/evenings the program has activities planned for us. One night we had pizza and a city walking tour, another night we had a picnic at the program director's beautiful garden. This past week we got to swim in the local hot springs and this week coming up we get to go to an Italian cooking class! We've visited two museums in Siena and later this semester we're visiting the Uffizi in Florence. I've taken two spontaneous excursions aside from the group with my friend Sophia the past two weekends. Last Sunday we took a bus to the small town of San Gimignano and yesterday we spent the day in Arezzo (where La Vita È Bella was filmed!). It is very easy to just head to the bus station and buy tickets on the spot to visit little Tuscan towns! Next Sunday we leave for our group excursion to Pisa, Lucca, and the Ligurian Coast!

Night Life--- Siena is a pretty chill town compared to Rome or Florence... but there are still some cool bars and fun things to do at night. Generally we all just come back into the center around 9:30pm. This is due to the fact that we all eat dinner with our host families around 8pm and because almost everyone's last bus into town is at 9:30. Drinks here are pretty expensive so we usually just buy some bottles of wine to split and we sit in Il Campo to hang out for a while. There are usually other groups of American students from other study abroad programs or other international students so we usually end up meeting new people or getting serenaded by some German guy who loves playing Backstreet Boys on his guitar (true story). Later we usually end up going to a bar called Caffe del Corso (they have these realllly long neon colored straws that are absolutely useless but really fun anyways) and then if it's before 12:20 we go to the bus stop to catch the 12:20 bus and if it's after, we have to take taxis. Which brings me to the public transportation section...

Public Transportation--- Inconsistent. Frustrating. Bogus. Funny. All words to describe the Siena bus system. They mostly stop running around 9:30pm but there's one line (the #10) that sometimes runs at 11:20pm and 12:20am. Key word = sometimes. These late night buses are called the "phantom buses" because they are never posted and they only sometimes show up. Or they show up but at the complete opposite time they were supposed to (slash not supposed to). Or they just don't. And then you sat there waiting for it for an hour only to finally decide as a group to split a taxi even though they're super expensive but no one can actually walk home because it's about a 45 minute walk and it's night time. You would think that the bus system would be a little better during the day but oh noooo. Don't even bother to plan ahead because even if you do, the bus driver probably just didn't want to go down your street that morning, it's Wednesday (market day) so naturally everyone is 30 minutes late everywhere, or some old man's cane got lodged in the doors so they couldn't close and the driver had to stop the bus to get out and dislodge the cane (again, true story). Speaking of canes, did you know that Siena is home to more old people than any other city Italy?

The Elderly--- Ok so I made that fact up, but there is a fact that resembles that one that our program directors told us and I just can't remember it exactly. But let me just say that there are SOOOOO many grannies and gramps here. everywhere. all the time. They're generally cute although sometimes pushy on the bus but that's usually just the nonnas and not the nonnos. There is this one old man that is at my bus stop a lot. We talk but he is really hard to understand so I typically just end up smiling and nodding and saying si si si even though I don't know what's going on. Last time we spoke I think he said something about equinoxes. Maybe?

Gelato and Coffee--- Two very delicious things. Want to have them every single day. So many flavors of gelato to try and getting espressos and cappuccinos is just the Italian way of life. Luckily, the two bars next to our two different school locations give us a discount on caffè. I don't even think I like gelato all that much. I mean, I do, but I also just get it because it's something to do and because I'm in Italy. I'm trying to reduce my spending-money-on-gelato tendencies by thinking in terms of "If I buy this item, I can't buy gelato for at least two days!" It is semi working.

Ok I could probably continue on and on with more categories like 1. cheap Asian stores, 2. Q tip translates to Cotton FIOC, and 3. Italian males are highly aggressive yet highly intriguing, butttt maybe next time.

Here is the link to my first photo album of Italia photos! Take a gander.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037054&id=1120590434&l=b40523d390

Ciao for now!

Baci,

Bella Gabriella